Video Game Devs, Voice Actors, and More Upset After James Gunn Announces All DC Media Will Be Connected
James Gunn recently announced some of the plans and ideas for the DC Universe under his watchful eye. He announced a number of shows and movies that I can appreciate for featuring many lesser known groups and characters and fans seem to be a little mixed on the news. One big part of the announcement though was the fact that Gunn stated that one of his jobs is to make sure that all movies, television shows, and video games going forward would be connected to each other. An exception is anything outside of the DC Universe he and Peter Safran are creating and Gunn lists Todd Phillips’ Joker and Teen Titans Go!. These will be labeled as Elseworld content and we’ll come back to this part in a little bit.
In addition to the projects, Gunn said that characters will move between live action and animated projects as well as video games with the idea being that the same actor will portray the character in every iteration. The idea is to maintain a feeling of continuity which is admirable. Personally, I think this is an idea with good intentions that sounds good on paper, but as you think about it more turns into a bit of a nightmare and very worrisome. I’m not the only one either.
Over on social media, some people have voiced concerns about this move. For example, Del Walker who worked on the development team for the Batman Arkham games says that he won’t work with DC if they go through with this. Unfortunately, I’m unable to see Walker’s tweets due to their privacy settings, but CBR shared the following posts:
James Gunn just stated that DC want the film, games, and animation characters to be consistent and played by the same actors. I'll never work on a DC title ever again if that's upheld. You've lost your mind if you think Hollywood can outdo @tarastrong's Harley or any VA actor. — Del @ NaughtyDog (@TheCartelDel) January 31, 2023
These writers and voice actors do 100 versions of everything. They are in the booth doing 600 lines of dialogue just to end up with 20 of the best in the game. You think you're going to get Robert Pattinson to outwork a VA actor? And for a budget that makes sense? Good luck. — Del @ NaughtyDog (@TheCartelDel) January 31, 2023
Games & Cartoons are not 2 hour Pixar films. These mediums have thousands of lines. Hours of dialogue. The only 2 movie actors that I've seen keep up are Mark Hamill's, Joker and Haley Joel Osment's, Sora. And they became full VA actors. They cleared their schedule for years. — Del @ NaughtyDog (@TheCartelDel) January 31, 2023
As noted, this approach will quickly rack up costs unless they really minimize the speaking roles in these projects. With the bill growing so much, chances are that there will most likely be fewer resources for other teams on the project including the modelers, artists, programmers, writers, etc. If you felt Gotham Knights had a rough launch, just wait until even fewer resources go into a game because they have to pay for the Hollywood stars. Not to mention, this directly impacts the voice acting industry. Gamesradar+ added that “The responses to Walker's tweet are filled with developers and voice actors alike sharing his sentiment.” Once again I don’t have access to seeing the tweets directly but I was able to see some of the responses including this one from voice actor Erika Ishii.
Now, some defenders point to the aforementioned Elseworld content mentioned by Gunn. However, one thing is very unclear as to whether any future projects will fall under the Elseworld umbrella. Everything mentioned by Gunn that will be considered Elseworld is content that already exists. We know that there are some projects that have been announced that won’t be part of Gunn’s universe which will most likely get the Elseworld label. Given the way that Gunn talked about everything and shared tons of projects in the works, I really question if there’s going to be any new projects for the foreseeable future that fall under Elseworld.
Here’s my two cents. I think this is a mistake. I’ve already talked about how I think connecting everything is ruining Marvel and Star Wars and I don’t think DC will be an exception. One nice thing about Disney’s properties is that they haven’t made the video games connected (at least most of the time). Also, Acting and voice acting are different. They both require a lot of training and skill, but a good actor does not always make a good voice actor and vice versa. DC’s live-action films are a very mixed bag. However, their animated shows and films typically earn a lot of praise. They’ve hired actual voice actors instead of A-list celebrities and received amazing results at least most of the time. Those same projects weren’t connected to a larger universe either and allowed to breathe on their own and fans have loved that.
The way it was presented, Gunn made it seem like every DC project coming out under his watch will be connected and that’s very worrisome to me. I don’t think it’s a great strategy because more casual moviegoers, television watchers, and gamers aren’t going to want to invest time and money into a project if they know they have to consume all the other media first. What do you think about these plans that Gunn has announced? Should there be more Elseworld projects?